Rising from failure, and how India can learn from this moral

Legend- ___- Emphasis

7 balls to go, 10 runs to chase. With 9 wickets to spare and the half-centurion on strike, it was a
piece of cake for the batting team. The ball was in my hand, and I needed to conjure a miracle
to save the game for my team. This is the point where most people fall. ‘No one remembers he
who conquered all but the final hurdle.’

Shutting out all the outside noise, though, I took a deep breath, looked back at my decade-long
journey in cricket, and reminded myself that I was playing first and foremost for the happiness
cricket brought me, not for the win.

I then went on to bowl the most pivotal ball of my life, to get the batsman out, and as we went on
to win that semifinal and reach the final of the Singapore National U-15 Tournament for the first
time in 2023, (pause) I looked back and wondered, would I have ever reached here without
getting knocked down and standing back up?

My journey in cricket started at the age of two, when my grandfather, whom I loved more than
anyone in the world, taught me how to bat. As I grew older, I aspired to become a sportsperson,
like I’m sure everyone else here has, at some point or another. I joined the school cricket
academy, and under the invaluable mentorship of my coaches, I learnt my trade in cricket.

In second grade, I got a chance to make the ‘big time’ as a tryout for the school team was
organised, and though I gave it my all, I didn’t make it.

Oh, the despair of defeat! (In moderation) I was left heartbroken and insecure, but my
grandfather, just as he had gotten me into cricket earlier, motivated me to persevere. He
reminded me of so many sports persons who were overlooked and ignored, but didn’t throw in
the towel. Due to him, I didn’t quit like I had been thinking of doing, and instead continued
playing and waiting for my next opportunity, never giving up hope even once.

As luck would have it, my chance was to come in an entirely different country - Singapore, an
island of 50 lakh people, with a devout cricket following. My family shifted there in December
2019, and I was selected for the school team before the pandemic.

But such is the cruelty of sport sometimes that I was dealt a double blow in quick succession -
too old for one tournament by a week, and losing the crucial game on the very last ball in the
next. Despairing and disheartened, I felt like this was almost too much for me, and came close
to quitting again.

But soon enough, a national level U-15 tournament came along. I was given the chance to and
agreed to participate, because I remembered my grandfather’s teachings and realised that
quitting is simply not how life works. I began the ascent yet again after having fallen down a
second time, bowling better and better each game as the blocks began to fall in place for me. I
was on the rise, like a phoenix from the ashes, and as we made it to the semifinals, I bowled
that ball. We did lose in the finals, but by now I didn’t fear failure, so it didn’t affect me adversely.

Sport is often a cruel beast, and almost everyone will be knocked down. But success belongs
not to those who stay up, but those who stand back up repeatedly, who bluntly refuse to quit by
learning from each failure, because at the end of it all lies the unparalleled, sweet joy of victory.
My reward was a Best Performance of the Tournament award and an invite to an elite national
cricket training camp, where I played alongside players who had represented Singapore at the
national level!

Six months later, though, in July 2024, we shifted back to India. A new chapter in my journey. I
look back fondly on how in Singapore, sport, by teaching me resilience, hope, and, most
importantly, not to fear failure, helped me grow as a player and a person.

The biggest learning sport gave me, and one I hope you all can reflect on too, is having the
courage to get back up. I got the chance to do that twice, and look how that turned out! What
successful nations do differently is give sports players the belief to stand back up. And so the
day we as a nation, instead of moving on from the fallen sportsperson (as is unfortunately the
norm right now), offer a hand to them to help them get back up, is the day we set off on the path
to the pinnacle of success.

So every time I fall, I remind myself of that child who got addicted to mankind’s most ridiculous
yet greatest invention - sport; that child who didn’t stop believing in the “audacious power of
hope”, as Barack Obama put it - the hope that there was a place too for a short, chubby kid in
cricket, an absurd game of leather spheres and glorified sticks, yet one that I and a billion others
think the world of; that child who nearly quit twice, but got back up and was rewarded for it.

And I continue to play, determined to succeed yet untied from the burden of the fear of failure,
carefree in how I play yet caring more than anyone, and never forgetting this quote by
Confucius - “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

Thank you.